Since the launch of Twitter in 2006, it has quickly become one of the most visited and most used sites on the internet. With 500 million active users in 2012 and billions of tweets about every single subject, a wide variety of users including people, organisations, businesses both big and small, local and international, it’s not hard to see how your tweets get lost in the crowd. Today I’m going to go through understanding Twitter, connecting to your target audience and getting across your message to your followers.
You can disagree with me if you want, but I think that Twitter is the number one place for Bloggers to be. Twitter is such a great place to grow your readership and create relationships with other bloggers.
Different Kinds of Tweets
There are two different kinds of tweets – replies and mentions. This is something a lot of people get confused about, it’s actually been named the number one mistake by Twitter users. A reply is when you send a tweet directly to someone by placing their @username at the beginning of the tweet. Only people who follow both of you will see that tweet on their timeline. Mentions are when you use someones @username with characters beforehand. This will be seen by all of your followers on their timeline. See the examples below.
If you’re giving someone a shoutout or recommending an article or user, make sure you use characters before their username so it will show up on your followers timeline feed.
Design to reflect you
Your design should reflect you, your blog, your brand. Upload a header and profile picture, no one trusts eggs! Include some information about yourself, your blog or your company and link to a relevant website. Twitter is a social platform so let your personality shine through your tweets and adopt a casual and friendly tone. People are more likely to reply if they feel they can chat away to you.
Engage your audience
If you’re a business, the right content will bring people, followers can turn into customers and loyal customers will help you spread the word about your company. Similarly, if you’re a blogger and you engage with the people that follow you, they will help to promote your blog.
Search keywords associated with your business or blog and remember these when tweeting. Search for similar people and follow them, learn from them and form a relationship with them. The beauty/fashion blogging community is typically a very friendly one, so get following and talking to other bloggers. This is the main advantage of Twitter!
Use Twitter to convey information about you or your business that customers won’t find elsewhere. Twitter is turning into a very visual place so use images and videos in your tweets which will automatically appear on the timeline. Reply to mentions and be responsive, favourite positive messages and thank people for their kind words. Promptly address critical tweets and if it’s not settled in two tweets then take it somewhere more private. As for companies who deal with bloggers, be professional at all times, don’t be rude. This is a big no no and you have no idea how much bloggers will stick together. We’re like siblings, we fight amongst ourselves but will protect each other if anyone else attacks us.
How often do I tweet?
The answer is whatever suits you. Try to tweet daily so you remain active on peoples timelines. If you’re stuck, think about upcoming events, launches, holidays and how you can incorporate them into Twitter. Retweet relevant tweets and articles to provide interesting content for your followers. If you’re a blogger, retweet blogs, bloggers or posts that you like. Chances are if you like it, the people following your blog will like them too. Offer a special promotional code or offer on Twitter, give hints and have them tweet a secret word to win something. Be creative and you’ll be amazed at the response. You could even tweet behind the scene videos or images and provide information that followers don’t get to see everyday.
Tweet something shareable that is helpful or inspiring. Positive helpful tweets that solve a problem, answer a question or inspire your followers tend to be the ones that get retweeted. Think about how will they respond to a tweet, video or image.
How to grow audience on Twitter
Link your twitter account on all online and offline content. I can’t tell you how many blogs I’ve read that mention they have twitter but the link is nowhere to be found. Create tweets that others are likely to retweet, then if their followers find it useful or entertaining they might follow you too. You could tweet a giveaway or discount to everyone who retweets, but only if you reach a certain number of retweets or followers. Create a conversation and get involved in your niches community. Think about what time you usually tweet at, where do your followers live? See this post on promoting your blog using social media for more tips.
All about hashtags and Twitter Chats
Twitter Chats or Parties are simply chats that take place on twitter at a certain time every week using corresponding hashtags. Popular tv shows have jumped on this bandwagon too! There’s loads of chats for bloggers, I have created a chat calendar here that shows the details and times of each chat.
There are also a lot of blogger hashtags which you can use when tweeting about a new blog post. When a user searches for the hashtag, all the tweets with it appears. It’s like using labels/categories on your blog.
- #bbloggers = Beauty Bloggers Chat
- #fbloggers = Fashion Bloggers Chat
- #tbloggers = Teenager Bloggers Chat
- #lbloggers = Lifestyle Bloggers
- #fblchat = Fashion Beauty Lifestyle Bloggers
- #irishbbloggers = Irish Beauty Bloggers
- #foodbloggers = Food Bloggers
- #wbloggers = Wedding Bloggers
- #teenbloggers = Teen Bloggers
- #pbloggers = Parent Bloggers
- #psbloggers = Plus size Bloggers
- #travelbloggers = Travel Bloggers
- #petitebloggers – Petite Bloggers
- Chat times here!
Useful Twitter Tools
- Check how long you’ve had twitter for.
- Use Who Unfollowed Me to check who unfollowed you, who you’re not following back, who’s not following you back and your unfollower history.
- FollowerReview – review new followers, yourself, listers, mentions, retweeters, etc. This reviews the last 100 tweets and shows how often a person tweets, retweets, favourites, followbacks and interacts.
- Tweepi – manage your account; delete unfollowers, follow those you’re not following back, clean up inactive tweeters, filter certain accounts to automatically unfollow you, find new people to follow.
- TweetChat allows you to monitor and easily take part in twitter chats.
- Buffer, Hootsuite, TweetDeck, TwitterFeed, all allow you to manage accounts, schedule tweets and share content throughout the day.
Twitter Cards
Add extra information to your Tweets that link to your website, blog or shop by adding Twitter Cards, tutorial here.
Related Posts
How to use social media to promote your blog
Add custom share links and icons to your blog
8 responses to “Blogger’s guide to Twitter – hashtags, Twitter chats, useful tools and growing an audience”
Great post I didn’t have a notion that everyone couldn’t see a tweet if there were no characters in front of their username!
Yeah I know! I only recently discovered that, suppose it makes sense not to clog up the feed with back and forth conversation 🙂
This is so helpful–and perfect timing! I was literally just searching for advice about using Twitter as a blogger yesterday, and then I saw this on my Bloglovin’ feed this morning. Thank you for sharing Ellie. 🙂
I almost wasn’t going to post it lol glad you found it useful. Thank you 🙂
So useful! As a beauty blogger, I have learnt soo much from this xx thanks!
Pearl | Pearluxe Beauty&Lifestyle
Thank you! I’m very glad to help 🙂
Thank you for this info! I think that Twitter along with G+ are the 2 most misused and misunderstood forms of social media. You just cleared a lot of things up for me in regards to Twitter!
I agree with you there Luke, I’m glad you found this post helpful!